Film-makers have earned millions in the box office by creating calamity on the big screen: End-of-the-world movies. We’ve flocked in droves to see them. Hoping what? That it will prepare us for what might happen? For the thrill? The special effects?

Well, here we are in 2010. We haven’t even made it in three months, yet we’ve already seen multiple back-to-back natural disasters. No theater needed. Haiti. Argentina. Chile. Japan. Hawaii. Human lives lost in the rubble or changed forever through injury. Homes destroyed. Whole cities brought to dust.

You have to be completely self-absorbed not to wonder: what’s next? And possibly more pressing of a thought: Is there any way I can help those affected? And more pressing still: Is there any way to prepare for the possibility of any of these tragedies directly affecting me or my loved ones?

You can’t help but to question your life when you see it so quickly taken from others. And not just the bare bones of life: the breathing. But everything as you now know it. What makes your life your life. The activities you do. The people you love. The things you possess.

What would your life be without all of it?

I finally took the time to see “Book of Eli”. I had heard mixed reviews but I enjoyed it. Though not necessarily in the whew-hew!-this-movie-is-fun-to-watch sense. I enjoyed the message. I think it paints an important picture; one that may help spark necessary questions in a lot of our minds.

What if everything goes to shit? I mean by the looks of things it’s clearly been heading somewhere in the general direction of shit. Would you all of a sudden become a cannibal? A thief? A savage? Would you remain civilized? Humane? Would you give a damn about anyone else? Or only your own survival? Would you be able to go on without all of your “things”? Your technology? Your designer handbags? Any of your luxuries? Or what about your family?

My point, and what I came away from the movie with, is: We are born alone. We get here with nothing. We die alone. We leave with nothing. Throughout our lives we either begin to take for granted all of the things we are blessed with or at the opposite side of the spectrum: make them our gods. Few of us master the ability to exist with all that we are given without clinging to them as if they are what make us who we are. Even fewer learn the humble lesson that to truly live is to serve.

The reason we feel so great when we commit charitable acts is because the people we give to the most through those acts are ourselves. The human race is connected and the energy we put into helping the next person or being just to the next person comes back to us immediately and ten-fold.

So. How do we prepare for the end of the world, if such a thing exists? We reach back to the beginning of our own. We become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven. We gain peace of mind and self by unlearning all of the ignorance. Cleansing ourselves of all the -isms. Humbling ourselves to a greater power. We contribute to the betterment of humanity and this Earth. And if you find yourself unable to think past yourself to consider any of this, well my friend, no need to worry about natural disasters; you’ve already committed suicide.